


I fell for you like the stars.

by reiicharu



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:19:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reiicharu/pseuds/reiicharu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keiko talks to ghosts. And then she meets Sho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I fell for you like the stars.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrangerenters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/gifts).



> Gifted for astrangerenters for JE White Day 2014. I was incredibly nervous about this, because I had no idea if it would even go over well. Lots of inspiration from Hello Ghost and Ghost: Mou Ichido Dakishimetai, but mainly Hello Ghost, one of my favourite Korean films. I genuinely don't usually writes, but I decided the challenge would be worth it? Truth, this was meant to be a short 5k humour fic. Haha, and look what happened now. 
> 
> To astrangerenters, thank you for being a lovely recipient! It was wonderful writing for you and your comments brought a smile to me. 
> 
> The entire writing process required a lot of hand holding. To Reen, thank you for kicking my butt into writing this, thank you for kicking my butt and editing this and bemoaning how pretentiously I write. You're wonderful. JuJu dear, thank you for having faith in this and my freakouts. Thank you for being supportive and a wonderful source of sanity. J darling, thank you for laughing at me in the back of a taxi, making faces as I kept starting and changing and listening to every single idea I had and telling me to write what I want. Thank you, everyone. I couldn't have actually finished this in one piece without you.

The entire ghost thing was because of some crazy person and a car, and all this was during the first year of university. As if she needed the extra pressure. And then after the car and accident, Keiko woke up to her mother practically wailing and saying oh baby, my baby girl, I thought we lost you and then actually sobbing over Keiko. Which was fine, because Keiko was glad to be alive but what she didn’t know was, hey, look. A ghost, and a true-to-god ghost sitting on the end of her bed two weeks later.

Ghosts are actually okay, she learns this as she goes through college. There’s a ghost from Hokkaido who was blown down by the winds, all the way south.

So the entire ghost thing, it just kind of happens to her. 

Then there’s that ghost, the one who she wakes up to one morning and the guy is just sitting there, all blank eyes and confusion.

 

 

 

It’s not like she doesn’t adore Shihori. She really does, and Keiko is really glad Shihori’s new boyfriend isn’t mean and horrible. This boyfriend actually wears pants that fit him. But he does use too much hair product. Then again, this guy is practically a winner, going by Shihori’s track record. 

But seriously.

“You’re telling me that you want me to play ghost buster.”

“Yes. No. But Keiko, please! I just need your super special awesome ability to talk to ghosts! Just tell him to take a long walk! We can’t renovate until the guy is gone. The renovation people are highly superstitious and told us that we can’t open a restaurant with a ghost in there. And Jun-kun, he’s been working towards this restaurant his whole life. And it’s not like we knew about the ghost. But it just so happens that you can talk to ghosts—oh god, please?”

Okay, so it’s not like Keiko’s an unhelpful person. She’s a very helpful person. She helped Shihori break up with her terrible ex-boyfriend, which was a good thing. For all of them. And now Shihori’s with this guy who has pasta skills and a restaurant and now, apparently a ghost as well. 

Then again, nobody’s perfect.

“Shi-chan. I love you. And I know that you must be desperate. And—”

“Jun says you can have free pasta for the rest of your life.”

Now that gets her attention.

“Thank god you’re here,” he exclaims.

Keiko’s checked her calendar. She’s prayed at the shrine. She’s put on the hakama that her great-great-grandmother left for her that was inherited from some ancestor from some time ago. Keiko says a grumpy hello to Jun with her haraegushi.

“Don’t ask,” Shihori warns as Jun opens his mouth. “Don’t ask.”

“Just go with it,” Keiko replies before Jun really can ask. “Hello, Jun-kun. How are you?”

“When they said that they’d sell me the restaurant for a steal, they didn’t tell me there would be a ghost.”

Keiko rolls her eyes. What did he expect, for the original tenant to happily turn over a prime piece of land for absolutely nothing? But she does have to ask, “And when did the ghost turn up?”

“Yesterday. When I came in to show Shihori-chan the place, and it got super windy and she ran out screaming.”

“You!” Shihori hisses, “You were the one who ran out screaming like a little sissy!”

“You ran out screaming with me!”

“But the way you tell the story—”

“Guys!” Keiko yells.

The two of them stop bickering and look at her.

“So there was wind.”

“And umbrellas. It’s like there were lost umbrellas in there and then they went flying at us, and it just made the place seem really dodgy or haunted,” Shihori tries explaining and Keiko coldly raises an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t know what’s the difference between dodgy and haunted! That’s why you’re here. And besides, all you do is search for jobs you hate ever since you quit the old one and I was worried that you’ve become a shut-in and—ouch!”

“You!” Keiko says furiously, smacking Shihori over the head with her haraegushi. The paper flails in the wind and Shihori yelps and tries to hide behind Jun. “You!”

“I was going to totally cook you free pasta,” Jun says with utmost seriousness, as though his girlfriend’s best friend isn’t attacking with a purification broom. “Really!”

“And you!” she yells, turning on Jun. 

And at that point, she starts chasing them up and down the street with the haraegushi. 

 

 

 

When she first met Tomo, she wasn’t really sure how to feel. 

This was in the last year of college and she had no idea what she wanted to do with life. 

Get married, one of her aunts scoffed. A pretty girl like you, a degree’s more like an accessory. You know, like a Prada bag with a poodle in it.

Keiko never really liked that aunt.

But Tomo, he was sitting there on the edge of her bed, and even then, with the wide, wide eyes and asking oh my god, oh my god, you can actually see me? Are you a nice person? I’m very really lonely. You’re looking at me, you can see me. Right?

Yeah, she said. I can see you. 

Never mind she was in her pyjamas and minus a bra. 

Hi, he said. I’m Tomo. 

Just Tomo, she asked him, just Tomo?

Just Tomo, he answered back. What’s your name? 

“I’m Keiko.”

“Hello, Keiko.” 

Keiko doesn’t really hate the ghosts. It wasn’t as though the dating pool was particularly spectacular and well, it’s a welcome break from studying every damn day with information that just seemed to leak out of her head the moment she reads it.

Besides, she’s always known something was strange since that time she was a kid and heard someone whispering when she offered incense at her great grandfather’s grave. 

“Are you okay?” she asked Tomo. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just. Hello.”

 

 

 

“I hate you both,” Keiko declares flatly as she sits across the two of them in a café a few buildings over with a chai latte and her arms folded across her chest. “You’re dead to me.”

“Keiko-chan,” Jun pleads. “Come on. I’ve always dreamed of opening a restaurant that can make Shihori smile.”

“Your gross declarations of love have no effect on me whatsoever. You’re more cheesy than a Getsu Nine drama lead.”

It just gets a little bit worse because both Shihori and Jun break out the puppy eyes as though they’ve rehearsed the whimpering sounds and wide sad eyes with the love me, oh just love me expressions. Keiko resists the urge to smack them over the head with the haraegushi once more.

The only reason she stopped chasing them down the street was because an old man stopped them and scolded her for inappropriate use of purification items. “You are desecrating the traditions that built this country!” he hissed as he snatched the haraegushi from her, waving it in the air. “What are you youngsters thinking, treating this like some cheerleader pom-pom and screaming as you run around with this,” and so forth and so forth. 

The old man only stopped scolding them when they all gave him proper ninety degree bows and repeatedly apologised until he returned Keiko the haraegushi. At that point, Shihori said she could use a warm drink. Jun, the perfect boyfriend, found them a nearby café.

Stupid Jun. It makes Keiko wants a nice boyfriend.

Maybe one who doesn’t buy restaurants that are either dodgy or haunted.

“But you’ll help us check if there is a ghost, right?” Shihori asks pleadingly. “Keiko, please? There’s no other good restaurant and the area is nice and the place is just right. It was perfectly fine when Jun-kun saw it the first time. And that was before he signed the papers.”

“No, I’m just going to sit here and let you suffer,” Keiko drawls and Shihori lets out a horrified gasp. “Relax, I’m on to it.”

“How?” Jun asks. 

“No idea, but I’ll help you.”

“Really?” Shihori asks, eyes widen and sparkling and Keiko rolls her eyes.

“Of course. I’ve been looking out for you since we were kids. Remember the guy who shoved you off the swing?”

“Oh, didn’t you break his nose?”

“You broke someone’s nose?” Jun splutters. 

Keiko smiles and waves them off.

Shihori rushes over to Keiko’s side of the table to grab onto her, hugging her and telling her she’s the bestest friend ever and promising to always buy her better birthday presents. Keiko hugs her back. It’s what best friends do, she thinks. You break noses and banish ghosts. Or something. 

 

 

 

She’s there for two more hours before she actually summons up the strength to go and deal with it. She’s already told Jun and Shihori to go home.

It’s fine, she told them. You two go do some cute couple-y stuff. I need to wait and figure out how to handle your ghost. Just give me the keys to the place. 

Despite it all, they tried to stay. Shihori insisted that they could and Jun nodded. It is his restaurant after all. Keiko made up some excuse, about how they’d just get in the way and make the spirit angry and Jun’s hair product is offensive and Shihori’s too happy for the deceased. Something like that. They didn’t believe her, but at least they left.

She couldn’t help but smile when Jun helped Shihori into her coat and insisted on paying for all the coffees. 

If anything, Keiko’s glad that he’s a good guy.

She dealt with a ghost two months ago. 

The last one, she thinks. The last one had been a spirit who tried to leave this earth too soon. Spurned by a lover who found another, and Keiko took him to beach to run through the ocean and the salt mingling through the air and he laughed and laughed as the water splashed on them. Ghosts can feel too, he said. Yurei, just because we are yurei doesn’t mean we don’t matter. Our feelings don’t die with us. 

He faded into the afterlife and Keiko wonders if he’s happy. Sometimes, she thinks about it and wonders if she even made a difference.

She’s had girl ghosts before. They’re the women with the long glossy hair, the white robes, sad eyes and poisonous tones. Sometimes they’re beautiful and vicious. They’re angry, sometimes. Their babies were stolen, or their husbands didn’t love them. Sometimes they just die young. 

Sometimes, Keiko wishes she could wake up and not have made friends with ghosts. 

It’s not like she’s particularly brave or wonderful. It’s just something she does. Common decency for the deceased. If they come find you when unrested, you have to put them to rest. It probably sounds downright crazy.

She told Shihori, a year or so after.

“I can see ghosts,” she blurted out when they were at a carnival. There was a haunted house Shihori desperately wanted go to, except Keiko downright refused.

“Oh. Are they nice to you?”

And Keiko told her some of the stories. And really, it didn’t change anything. They grew up and graduated and Keiko stopped working that job where that stupid boss kept on trying to asking her out and piling on extra work when she didn’t go out with him. That wasn’t why she quit, though.

Keiko knows it sounds weak, but she didn’t want to just keep sitting in a chair, picking up calls and organising meetings. She’s not an office girl. She has a degree, she has a brain. She doesn’t want to waste it away. But it was the only job she could get after college. 

Maybe Shihori was right. She has become a bit of a recluse. Just going to read books at the library and writing down her encounters of ghosts. She’s been out of a job for six months. 

It’ll change, she promises herself. You go in, deal with their crazy ghost and then you find a job and you change this, all of this. You can do it. 

She looks out at the evening sky from the café window and sees the streetlights and signs glowing through the night.

There are no answers for her there. 

 

 

 

“Hello?” Keiko calls out cautiously, letting herself into an empty space of just grey walls and pillars. 

Tick tock, tick tock.

Someone’s left behind a clock, as though an empty restaurant space with little lighting could get any creepier.

Tick tock, tick tock.

“Hello?” she calls out once more and takes a few steps forward, looking around. Keiko has totally done this before. There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Except for the ticking clock. It’s seriously no big deal. She’s dealt with creepier, like the time she had to help the ghost in the high school. That was creepy. On a scale of creepy and creepiest, Keiko tells herself that it’s really not so bad. 

“Hello?” she calls out to no one in particular. 

There are umbrellas on the ground. There’s dust settling on the ground. There’s no one here.

Tick, tick, tick.

Keiko looks at the clock on the wall, the clock that’s just like any other clock except it’s stalled. She clutches at the bamboo of the haraegushi even tighter. Keiko’s done everything she’s supposed. She’s put salt on the doorstep, she’s washed her face, her mouth and her hands. She’s done everything right so far. And she has dealt with worse. It’s just a stalled clock. 

The door open and then slams shut, and the wind in the vacated space picks up and Keiko ducks down, cowering and shaking her haraegushi with one hand and throwing salt with another because yeah, that’ll totally save her from a ghost throwing a tantrum. 

“I’m just trying to help,” she yells, eyes squeezed shut because the door keeps opening and slamming shut and the clock is stalled and keeps ticking. 

The door slams shut once more and Keiko tenses up even more. She forces herself to crack an eye open.

“Go away.”

She looks up and he’s there.

The door’s not swinging and the clock’s stopped ticking.

Dark hair, sad eyes and a nice mouth. She wonders if he was a heartbreaker in his days, he’s a good-looking ghost. Keiko’s met some good-looking ghosts. Tomo was a good-looking ghost. And that was hot ghost from the eighties. 

“Please leave,” the ghost tells her.

Keiko stands up, and the ghost picks up an umbrella.

Keiko puts down everything in her arms: her bag that has the salt, the haraegushi and and the prayer book with the prayer beads, even though she has trouble reading half the kanji because it’s all handwritten. 

The ghost puts down the umbrella.

“I just want to help you,” Keiko replies cautiously.

The ghost looks at her, and looks at the door over her shoulder.

She turns and watches, as it slowly swings open.

“Please, leave.”

The ghost takes a step forwards and he’s taller than her. He looks as though the weight of the world’s on his shoulders, as though he hasn’t let sunlight warm the cracks of his heart for a long time. 

“I don’t want you here. I just want to be alone,” he tells her quietly. “Go live your life far away from me. Go away. Please.”

“I can help you,” she tries once more.

“Get out!”

The wind picks up and she squeaks. It’s embarrassing that she squeaks and the ghost looks a little bit sorry and she picks up her things and bows to him. It’s hard, she knows that it’s difficult after going on for a while and not even being there, not being known or loved or just even being there. She knows it’s hard. One of them chased her down an alleyway in Shinjuku. Another kept demanding that she sing and dance until he laughed. Keiko knows it’s hard.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she says politely. “I hope that when you’re ready, you can find your peace.”

The wind dies down.

She straightens and the ghost looks at her, blank and silent.

“I hope you will find some happiness so you can find your rest.”

“What makes you say that?” he asks her.

Keiko blinks.

“Why would I find happiness?” the ghost repeats.

“Ghosts,” Keiko says, “Ghosts have feelings, too. Just because you’ve passed on does not mean that your feelings can crumble like incense after you light it. You look sad. That’s why I said that.” 

She’s at the door when he calls out, “You. Hey.”

Keiko turns and the ghost fumbles over words, hands tugging at his white clothes. 

“I’m sorry. For being so rude. Thank you for trying.”

Tick tock, tick tock. 

And the clock has started once more. She tilts her head and he bows back a little. Keiko leaves the restaurant and the door gently swings shut behind her.

 

 

 

Keiko sends Shihori a message, an apology mainly. Sorry I couldn’t tell the ghost to go. He’s there. I’ll try again another day.

She’s lying in bed but she can’t sleep.

Keiko forces herself up, goes through her desk and fishes out one of her journals. 

Tomo, she reads. Tomo was twenty something and lost and he told me that I was pretty. 

She snaps the journal shut and throws it back into her desk drawer. 

Truthfully, the money is running out. She doesn’t live extravagantly but it’s expensive sometimes, and she misses Kobe. Sometimes she thinks about moving back. 

But that requires her to listen to naggy relatives on a daily basis. 

She promises herself to deal with the ghost again tomorrow. Maybe he just hasn’t talked to anyone in awhile. Maybe he just floats around and smiles as children sleep. Maybe he fends off the hungry ghosts, the one with the thin throats and large mouths and she thinks, no, he probably hasn’t. It was as though he hasn’t spoken in a long time.

And she doesn’t know why, but she falls asleep thinking of that. What to say to someone who hasn’t spoken to anyone for awhile.

 

 

 

She’s armed with more salt, and some charms, and her prayer beads, and the books and the haraegushi when she enters the restaurant once more.

“Hi?” she says and listens for the clock.

It’s stopped. 

“It’s me again,” she calls out. 

Nothing. 

“I don’t think we really got to know each other. My name is Kitagawa Keiko. I should have asked your name yesterday. So, uh. If you’re in here somewhere.”

Still nothing.

 

 

 

“I’m a graduate. I worked some weird jobs and some normal ones,” she says to no one. 

 

 

 

“I have a cat. Or I had a cat. Jill doesn’t really like my ghost friend. Yeah, my cat can see ghosts.”

 

 

 

“I have been skinny dipping. My favourite drink is Pocari Sweat. I prefer sesame over green tea ice cream.” 

 

 

 

She’s been sitting there for awhile when he creeps out from a corner. Standing there, looking at her. Keiko wonders how strange she must seem, sitting in the empty room and just saying stupid things like her cat and what she likes to eat and how her dad is a doctor and that her mother has given up on Keiko’s inability to hold her chopsticks properly.

“Where did you graduate from?” the ghost finally asks her.

“Meiji.”

“Oh.”

The ground is dusty. She’s going to have a grey patch on the ass of her jeans. 

“I don’t know where I graduated from,” the ghost admits. “I know I graduated.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure we can figure it out.”

The ghost shakes his head, “I don’t want to figure it out.”

Keiko nods and stands up. “It was nice talking today,” she says awkwardly.

“My name is Sho.”

“I’m Keiko.”

“I know. I heard you. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Have a nice evening,” she says softly, taking her things and leaving once more.

 

 

 

Shihori looks at her helplessly, “I’m a terrible friend. I dragged you into his stupid restaurant and now you look sad.”

“Well, it’s usually a downer when they’re sad,” Keiko admits. “I’m fine.”

Jun comes by with their coffees and sits down beside Shihori. He awkwardly stares at his cappuccino and then, “I’m so sorry. I should have checked on the premise and asked if it was being occupied by the deceased.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Keiko sighs. “I already submitted so many forms for a masters; I feel like if I try and send out anymore of them, I’ll go crazy.”

“But you look so sad,” Shihori splutters.

Keiko rolls her eyes. “I’m fine. It’s just. I don’t know. You can get sad from talking to the dead.”

“What’s he like?” Jun asks her, oddly curious, and Keiko has to think.

“He’s, well.” Good-looking? Temperamental? “Lonely. I can try talking to him. Eventually, you know, they open up and you find out how to complete their life cycles.”  
Shihori and Jun look at her, confused.

“It’s you know, the thing you do. When you try and make the ghost happy.”

“Maybe he likes liquor.”

“That’s you,” Shihori snorts, smacking her boyfriend on the arm. “Maybe he likes candy.”

“Now look who’s talking.” 

 

 

 

The next day, Keiko arms herself with sake and candy. She sits there for two hours and Sho doesn’t appear at all. 

 

 

 

“Haven’t seen you since you were dating a ghost.”

“For the last time, we weren’t dating,” Keiko snaps.

Nino laughs and rolls his eyes and shuffles a pack of cards.

“I don’t need my fortune told.”

He puts his cards away, mildly disappointed. 

“You realise I do pay by the question. And I don’t take credit cards.”

She can’t help but smile at him and Nino smiles back.

Keiko plops herself on the cushion and pulls out her purse. The room’s air is thick with incense and tea. 

“Glad to know some things haven’t changed,” she remarks and slaps a thousand-yen bill onto the table. “Ghost, sad and angry and haunting a restaurant. How to fix it.”

“You can’t make him move on. You know the rules. You can only help him.”

He tries to take the money but Keiko holds on stubbornly, glaring at him from across the table. 

Nino’s grandfather, Ninomiya Senior, was the man Keiko’s mother consulted when she found out her daughter could see ghosts. Keiko’s mother might have found them through a dodgy internet site with a suspicious lack of reviews. Her mother might or might not have typed ‘my daughter can talk to ghosts’ in the search bar. Turns out that the dodgy website with the terrible url was Nino’s handiwork. 

“So, did he dump you or something?” Nino asks her casually. “Wanna go out? For dinner. You’re paying.”

Keiko lets go of the money and Nino pockets it, all smug and puffed up for a guy who doesn’t look older than twelve. He’s actually thirty. 

“The guy is occupying my friend’s restaurant. The renovators won’t start until he’s gone. I gave him sake, I gave him candy, I threw salt over the floor, I tried talking to him. I used a haraegushi. He’s not really very social. They’re not usually so isolated and stubborn.”

“There’s no alternative way to purify the place,” Nino tells her loftily, “You’ll have to communicate with the spirit. Or you can pray him away. Or you can get a monk to communicate and pray. Or you can try harder.” 

“I’ve tried!”

“It can’t be that hard.” And he eyes her warily, “Oh. Are you still sad? Because ghost boy dumped you?”

“Tomo and I were just friends!”

“Yeah, is that what they call it now,” he drawls before pulling out a yellowing book with tattered and dog eared pages and flipping through it. “Seriously, what went wrong with the two of you?”

To set the record straight, Keiko wasn’t dating Tomo.

She just talked to him.

And cared for him. 

But they weren’t dating. 

“He’s a ghost, I’m a person. What else could be more problematic?”

“So you did want to date him,” Nino says, peering over the top of his book.

Keiko counts to five, then ten and then recites the hiragana chart in her head. 

“He and I were just friends. He stuck around for awhile. I helped him move on after. What does it matter, just help me with this ghost. My friend needs the restaurant. Or her boyfriend does. He’s my friend as well, I guess, but.” She stops talking, folds her arms around her chest and decides to speed things up a little. “Ninomiya Kazunari, I still know your grandfather. If you don’t help me, I will find him and tell him how you extort silly girls for money with your little love fortune business on the side.”

Nino pales and starts flipping through the book a little faster. 

 

 

 

She sits there whilst Nino lights a few candles and then eyes him suspiciously.

“So why did I have to bring a picnic?”

“Because I don’t want to starve whilst waiting for the ghost? Don’t worry. You’re not my type,” he retorts, poking his tongue out and going back to lighting more candles.

“And what’s the point of this?”

“A get-to-know-you session.”

“You said I wasn’t your type!” Keiko snaps.

“No, you will get to know him.”

“And how does that help?”

“Just do it!” Nino snaps back, sitting down on the picnic blanket and fishing onigiri out of the basket. “So, start talking to him.” 

Keiko protests, makes some stupid noises and grumpily pulls out some Pocari to drink before muttering, “I already tried that, and I don’t really want to talk about myself in front of you. You’ll blackmail me and I’ll forever have to give you money and help fund your illegal love fortune business.”

“Why else would I be here?”

At that point, Keiko ignores him and looks around the empty restaurant and at blank walls, sighing. If she’s going to get talking, she might as well start now.

“In Buenos Aires, there’s this lighthouse. And when you climb up there, all you do is think of the sad things in life until you reach the top. When you reach the top, all those thoughts fade away when you see the view. It’s meant to be the place where you let your sadness drop into the unknown.”

“What the fuck is that?” Nino mutters and Keiko elbows him in the side.

“I’ve never been there. I only heard about it in college. I don’t even know if it’s real.”

She tells Sho about Kaguya-hime. She tells him her version of the story about a girl who lived on the moon and she was meant to be married to a prince. But she fell in love with another man. So she found another girl to take her place on the day of the wedding. The prince was broken-hearted; Keiko remembers this story like breathing. Her mother told her the real story, the right version, but this is the one Keiko knows is better; this is her Kaguya, the one who was beautiful and just wanted to be free and to love who she wanted to love.

Because Kaguya, she didn’t want to marry a prince. She just fell in love with a man who collected the stars to make her smile. But she couldn’t marry him either. It’ll condemn him to death.

The prince did love her, Keiko remembers this part as well. The prince loved her too much, just from her beauty and her spirit, so he banished her. She was reborn as a beautiful girl found in a bamboo. She grew up, the most beautiful girl that ever lived. The man who collected the stars for her watched over her every night, and every time she cried, he would send down a shooting star. 

“Then what happened?”

He’s there again, leaning against the walls and the glow of the candles casts a light on his face. and she can see the curve of his cheekbones and the sadness in his eyes, and Keiko wishes that she could do anything other than tell him stories of girls from the moon.

“She cried,” Keiko says quietly.

Nino sighs, “Well, that’s sad.”

“It was,” Keiko agrees. “She cried, because she loved someone so much and they couldn’t even be together. And she had parents that loved her. And people who wanted to marry her. She was a beautiful girl and that’s all she was. And she could get married and live comfortably, but that’s not what she wanted. Even the emperor wanted to marry her.”

“And she was still crying?” Sho asks.

“She cried so much that one night, there was a meteor shower. The man who collected the stars came down to find her. And he promised to take her away to a place where she’ll never cry again. So Kaguya said goodbye to her parents, to the emperor that loved her. He burnt letters for her. He went to a mountain and burn letters and a potion she gave him because she couldn’t give him love, but she could give him immortality.”

“But he didn’t want that,” Sho says. “Who would want to live forever and there’s no one there for you?”

Keiko says nothing. Because she knows the end of the story. 

“Do they get to be together?”

“It’s a sad ending, isn’t it?” Nino asks her quietly. 

“When she returned to the moon, the price for returning from exile is death. So Kaguya ran to the edge of the moon and threw herself off. She dissolved into a million stars. So every constellation you see now, it’s the man she loved, collecting her heart and soul and putting her together. Because even if she’s not there anymore, he wants to remember her as someone free and beautiful, and that he will never forget her.”

She looks at Sho, who stares at the ground and then at her.

“I think I knew the other version of the story. You know, the traditional one.”

“Traditional is boring.”

“Is this your boyfriend?” He changes the subject and nods at Nino, “You brought your boyfriend to meet me?”

“No, he’s a shaman.”

“I’m the grandson of a shaman,” Nino corrects. “I specialise in love fortunes.”

“Don’t trust a word he says. This is Ninomiya, by the way.”

“Nino,” he protests. “My grandfather is Ninomiya.”

It makes Sho laugh and Keiko’s glad that he’s laughing. He’s not free and he’s not happy, but at least he’s laughing.

Nino tells Sho about the time he decided to run away from home and ended up getting lost on the trains, and how he called his mother, crying and whining for her to pick him up. He tells Sho about the first time he met Keiko and she hides her face in embarrassment because Keiko’s mother was very concerned for her child, and Nino happily decided to douse her in salt and holy water. That was when their mothers suggested they date. Nino and Keiko were very displeased at that suggestion. 

Keiko tells Sho about Shihori’s ex-boyfriend. The one with the attitude and the pants that were hanging off his butt and how he was from Tokyo but insisted on speaking Kansaiben. She decides to talk to him about Shihori and Jun, and Nino says Shihori sounds cute. Keiko smacks him over the head. 

“You can’t have her,” Keiko says fiercely, “She’s mine.” 

By the time Sho asks them to leave, Keiko knows he’s smiling. And she knows that she’ll come back.

 

 

 

“What went wrong with you and Tomo, anyways?”

They’re standing on the platform of a train station and Nino’s holding her picnic basket. 

“He was in love with someone else,” Keiko says honestly.

Nino keeps quiet.

“He knew her, a hundred years ago. And he fell in love with her. And he saved her life.”

“It must have been hard,” he remarks, “Competing with a memory.” 

The train arrives and they get on, sitting down on the fuzzy seats and staring at posters advertising beer and face creams.

Through the window, the city is a blur of shadows and lights.

“Not really,” Keiko says with a smile. “She’s who I was. And he just wanted to make sure I was safe before he moved on. He waited until she came back before he could become someone else.”

 

 

 

She’s half asleep when she hears Sho’s voice saying, “Talk to me.”

No, really. Sho’s voice.

Hold on.

Keiko wakes up as she tumbles out of the bed, trying to find the night-light and then seeing Sho and also grabbing the blanket to cover herself.

“What are you even doing here?” she asks, getting back onto the bed and rubbing her hip. Her tumble out of the bed wasn’t exactly graceful.

“I just wanted another story,” Sho says awkwardly. 

“You followed me home?”

“I followed the train. I was above the trees. You were looking right ahead, that’s probably why you didn’t even see me,” he admits. “Sorry. I sound like a stalker.” 

“Yeah,” Keiko mutters. “Don’t worry, I’m used to ghost stalkers. Just don’t follow me into the shower.”

“Sorry.”

She surveys him carefully before she asks, “What story do you want?”

“A happy ending,” he requests.

She pats the spot on the bed beside her and he sits down there with her.

“How about aliens? Do you like aliens?” she asks him. “Well, too bad. I’m going to tell you about an alien.”

“Aliens aren’t even real,” Sho complains.

“Says the ghost.”

He shuts up and Keiko smiles triumphantly.

She does tell him an alien story though. She tells him all about an alien that fell down from his planet because he accidentally crashed his space ship on earth. He fell in love with a pretty girl. This alien looked like a human, talked like a human. He was a very handsome human. He was fixing his spaceship the entire time he was loving her and they were happy, until she found out he had to go home. The girl, Keiko says, didn’t take it so well. She kicked him out of her house, threw a hairdryer at his head and told him to go back to planet whatever. She was angry, because even though she knew he was an alien, she thought that he loved her enough that he wouldn't leave.

Sho looks confused. “But his home is in space.”

“Well, that’s how you see it,” Keiko replies. “The girl saw a home as a place where you’re happy and loved.”

“How did the alien see it?”

“I don’t know. I was just making that story up for you right now.” 

“Happy ending though,” he presses, and Keiko rolls her eyes.

“But I don’t know the ending.”

Sho falls quiet and Keiko sighs.

“The alien took her to see his ship. Even though she threw a hairdryer at his head. The entire ship was fixed, but there’s a photograph inside the ship and it was of her. Because he knew he would be sad the moment he goes home.”

“So then what happened?”

“He kissed her and said that he would rather the real thing instead of a photograph. So he takes her into his ship and brings her to his home, and sometimes they come back to earth to visit her parents and to see earth again but really, he said she was right. Home is where you’re loved and happy. So when he went back to his planet, the alien bought the biggest ship he could find and taught her how to pilot it. The girl flew the ship over space as he decided to decorate the inside and they lived happily in the galaxy, with each other.”

He grumbles and mumbles, “That sounds like a rushed ending.”

“Of course it is, I only did just make up the story for you,” Keiko scoffs, then yawns. “Your turn.”

“I don’t know about stories. I know about economics.”

“Then tell me about economics, it’ll put me to sleep.”

And he does. And she’s right. Keiko’s asleep within seconds. 

 

 

 

That morning, she wakes up and sees Sho sleeping on the foot of her bed. 

Keiko picks up her phone, dials Shihori and says, “You can tell Jun he can renovate.”

She has to hold the phone away for a bit as Shihori squeals from joy.

 

 

Keiko’s used to living with a ghost. She’s lived with ghosts before.

She lived with Tomo for two months before she had to let him go. 

Sho floats around as she makes herself some breakfast and tea. and Keiko stares at him when he gives her breakfast a quizzical look.

“Raw egg on rice.”

“What’s wrong with it?” she asks defensively.

“I think I used to eat that a lot.”

“You think?”

“I don’t remember,” he admits. “I remember bits and pieces. Talking helps.”

“Uh huh,” she muffles out, happily starting on her breakfast, and then adding some soy sauce. “Want some?” she asks, offering him the bowl and Sho takes it. Keiko laughs, gets up and fixes up an extra bowl for herself.

“Am I bothering you?” he asks when they’ve finished with breakfast and Keiko’s washing up. 

“Not really,” she admits. “I quit my job awhile ago and sometimes I write reviews on cafes, and if I’m lucky, get paid. But I don’t really have much to do.” 

She leaves out the part about being a shut-in. Keiko doesn’t talk about how a month ago, Shihori stormed over and threw out all her instant noodles and forcibly dragged Keiko into the sunlight. I’m not letting my best friend turn into a vampire, Shihori yelled as Keiko grouched the whole time. 

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” he blurts out.

Keiko laughs, a little evilly as she dries the dishes dries a dish. “Why? Think I’m pretty? Feel bad for tormenting me the first time we met?” The awkward silence is a great big yes and she cackles a little.

Sho whines, and moans, “I’m sorry about that. I’m not even sure if I should have left.” 

“It’s okay. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m sexy, free and single.” 

“You’re more pretty than sexy,” Sho mutters.

“Sorry, can’t hear you.”

“I said,” and he stops abruptly as she giggles at him. “I said,” he tries again.

“You must have been really bad with women when you were alive.”

“Don’t remember that part either.”

“Why did you leave the restaurant, Sho?”

“I think I’m older than you,” Sho remarks, “I should be Sho-san.”

“You tried to scare me away, you’re Sho.”

“I don’t know why I left. I suddenly got lonely and wanted another story.” 

“Well, you can’t go back now,” Keiko says. “They need to renovate. They promised me free pasta if I could get you out of there.”

Sho looks rather miffed. “You traded me for pasta?” 

Keiko shrugs. “One soul for free pasta, what would you do?”

He shuts up and then starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she demands.

“I like that you’re honest,” Sho admits. “It’s nice.” 

It’s a good thing, seeing him smile. She wonders if that’s all he wanted. To be happy, to have some company. If he fades from this, if he crosses over, Keiko thinks it’ll be okay. He deserves to be happy; everyone needs to rest at one point.

 

 

 

Keiko buys herself a train ticket to Chiba. 

Sho asks her why and Keiko shrugs. “Ghosts like it when I take them to the beach.” 

He seems to just go with that and follows her. Sho sits with her in the carriage and stands when an old lady hobbles by for a seat. The lady doesn’t even notice him when she sits but Keiko smiles and mouths a thank you at him. Sho shrugs and Keiko smiles. 

He must have been a nice guy, before all this. 

The train ride has her staring at land that is wide and buildings that aren’t as high. When Keiko gets off at the train station, the air is fresher and she stretches her arm just because she can.

When they do get to the beach, it’s freezing cold. The wind has picked up and nobody’s there. The sky’s overcast and a little bit miserable. But Keiko takes off her shoes and walks on the sand, squishing her toes through it, turning and spinning around in the wind.

“You look crazy,” Sho informs her and Keiko shrugs.

“I’m allowed to be. I talk to ghosts; I’m unemployed, I can’t hold onto a decent man to save my life. I’m allowed to look crazy.”

He walks with her and then starts turning as well, flapping his arms as he does. He turns and spins and runs around until he falls over onto the sand and Keiko walks over and asks, well then. Who’s the crazy one now? 

“Did you know I was asleep for a really long time?”

“I didn’t know that.”

Sho nods. 

Keiko sits on the sand with him, and Sho remains where he is, sprawled and boneless and a little bit tired.

“I was sleeping. And I’d wake up and find myself in a place I didn’t know. Then I’d be sleeping and watching a family with two kids. A boy and a girl, and then they’re grown up. More adults than kids, and then I’d sleep again and I’d wake up. I was sleeping and I didn’t know where I was and no one would see me. And no one even missed me. You were the first person in a long time to talk to me.”

She says nothing, decides to lie down on the sand with him instead. 

“I remember some things, you know. I used to go to university and I was smart. I think I had a girlfriend but she dumped me because I was always working. I get angry when I see fathers ignoring their kids. I must have had a daddy complex,” he laughs a little, and Keiko laughs as well. “I want to believe in happy endings but it seems hopeless. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear them. And I like reading newspapers. The renovators left newspapers there when I scared them off.”

“My mother wants me to go to an omiai. Apparently I’m at a respective age where I should be happily married.”

“Oh, I went to an omiai once. It didn’t work out because I accidentally got the places mixed up and went on someone else’s omiai instead.”

Keiko snorts. “Seriously, you can’t even remember who you are, but you remember that you went on the wrong omiai?”

“Yeah,” Sho says and he snorts as well, “Oh god. I must sound terrible.”

“You just sound a little silly. It’s alright,” Keiko reassures him, “Silly is good. Silly is cute.”

“So I’m cute now.”

She smiles because really, why not. “You can be cute, I can be pretty. I’ll be a human and you’ll be a ghost. I’ll help you and tell you stories. Why not?” 

Sho looks grateful and confused by her kindness, and it makes her think that he must have been devoid of warmth a long time ago. As though he had nothing to keep him smiling; maybe he was drowning in the mass of conformity. Maybe he was a salaryman; maybe he had dreams that he shelved for a stable income and fulfilling expectations. Maybe he was someone and he was sad. 

Keiko wants to change that, and it’s not out of kindness and it’s not because she wants to lay his soul to rest. She wants to change it and she doesn’t know why. 

 

 

 

Shihori calls her. “Want to come over for dinner, Kei-chan?”

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating about Jun’s ghost-free restaurant?” she teases in response.

“I am! Well, we will! But I just want to thank you. And see you!”

“Go and celebrate,” Keiko insists with a smile, “You go and be happy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll come by soon. I’m just having dinner with someone.”

“Who?” Shihori practically shrieks over the phone, “Oh my god, Jun! Jun!” she hears Shihori shouting into the background, “Jun! I think Keiko’s on a date!”

“A friend,” Keiko says, exasperatedly and really, “I don’t need you being all crazy about this. Just a friend.”

“Can I meet him?”

“No,” and she hangs up.

Sho pokes the omurice Keiko made for their dinner and asks, “Is that the happy girl? The one who was with the guy in the purple jeans?”

Of course Jun wears purple jeans. 

“The happy girl’s name is Shihori. She’s been my best friend since forever. When I moved for college, she moved for college. And she dated terrible people who made her horribly sad for a long time until she found Jun. So she’s very happy. And yes, Jun’s the guy with the purple jeans.”

“So they’re happy together?”

Keiko remembers a day when Shihori and Jun were fighting so much they couldn’t even stand in the same room. Jun was angry because she went to collect her things from an ex-boyfriend and didn’t tell him. Shihori was angry because she just wanted her things back; there’s nothing more to it. They were fighting and Keiko played the awkward referee because Shihori was working in some company as an illustrator and Jun was cooking every afternoon and night, and they hardly spent enough time together. 

Keiko tried to force them into the same room and it ended up with Shihori running off and refusing to speak to either of them.

And Jun, stupid and wonderful Jun said, “God, I must really fucking love her. Because even if she’s angry at me, I know that she’s upset because I’m angry at her because what I feel matters and I don’t care if she’s mad at me. At least we matter this much that we’re fighting.” And it was the stupidest thing she’s ever heard because Keiko doesn’t understand people in love and she certainly doesn’t want her best friend hurt by it either.

Keiko’s seen Shihori crying and upbeat and putting a smile on for the world. Keiko pushed boys over in sandboxes because they would pull Shihori’s hair. She once threw paint in art class because some girl was teasing Shihori about not really understanding tampons and for god’s sake, they were thirteen. Keiko’s been her protector, her best friend, and she didn’t want Shihori to like Jun that much, even though Jun was a prince compared to everyone else. 

Shihori broke down a week later though and cried in Keiko’s arms because it really wasn’t about the things or about the ex-boyfriend or anything. Jun wanted them to live together, “In the same damn apartment, in one bedroom with a kitchen he’ll always use and a television set that I’m taking from my place and how will that work out? What if he gets sick of me? What if I don’t like doing his laundry?” 

Keiko’s never lived with a guy before and that’s by choice. She likes her space, she likes her freedom and she likes staying up late watching movies or reading books that are more pretentious than anything else. She likes Shihori over at her place, making popcorn and having private dance parties to music that’s overhyped and terrible. 

“Well, now they’re living together and they’re happy together, and he’s opening a restaurant because she believes in him and she’s now about to move jobs for a higher position because he believes in her.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” she counters.

“You seem so focused on how happy they are. You came to chase me away because of them. What do you want?”

“Me? I don’t think I really need anything right now. I suppose I’m meant to help you,” she adds, “You know. Help you move on, find you whatever is missing in your spirit.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a ghost who was glooming around in an empty restaurant.”

“You know, you’re not really freaked out. I thought you were a total scaredy cat,” he recalls. “You came in there, and then you were squeaking like a mouse.”

Keiko splutters and glares at him, “You threw a temper tantrum! That damn clock is creepy.”

“You were interrupting my peace,” he says seriously.

“What peace? You’re dead, you have all the peace in the world.”

“I thought you were helping me, or something.”

“Well,” she says loftily, “I might have changed my mind.”

“I know what I used to want,” Sho replies, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I used to want to be an archaeologist. You know, go to Egypt and dig up bones, and write about it and where they could have come from.” 

He makes her laugh because he’s all clean cut and an indoor type of ghost who hides in restaurants, she can’t imagine. Keiko shouldn’t like that. But she does.

 

 

 

Keiko lives with Sho for a week. She finds out that he’s probably really bad at art. Her curtains are water stained and mouldy so she has to get new ones. Sho picks the most ugly ones in the store and the guy nearly calls security because in his eyes, she’s probably arguing with either herself or thin air and that was scaring everyone. 

He can’t cook worth a damn either.

“You should be freaking out that I can touch things,” he complained when he destroyed her toaster.

“I’m used to this type of thing. You could shatter all the windows right now and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

So Sho starts trying to surprise her. He gives her bits of useless knowledge, like the name of a palace in Thailand which he stammers out. He tells her how he had a pet hamster that he used to feed chocolate. She’s showering when he barges in, and she pokes her head around the curtain and starts throwing bottles at him. 

“But I surprised you!” 

They both used to play the piano. Keiko says she gave up because it just wasn’t her type of thing. Her mother wanted her to be a well-rounded young lady. Sho says he kept at it during college.

He lives with her for a week and helps fold her clothes, also sets off her fire alarm and asks what is she writing at night. Sho has no sense for writing but he likes to read her entries out loud. He narrates them like an old man, with voices and too much deliberation. Keiko thinks it doesn’t matter if he reads it. He’ll leave her one day, and it won’t matter. 

She has to tell herself not to get attached.

“Tell me about Tomo.”

“Why, are you jealous?”

Sho is not her friend and he’s not anyone important. Sho is a ghost and Keiko is a human. She’s just helping him and he’s keeping her company. It’s all a fair trade.

 

 

 

Her mother calls her, asking if she’s doing alright.

“You know, your dad knows someone who has a job for you. It;s in a decent company and there are lovely people.”

“That sounds great, I’ll think about it.”

“You can come back to Kobe, you know.”

Keiko knows she can go home. And she doesn’t actually hate company life or anything of that sort. It’s just that after she sat at a desk and forced herself to smile and dealt with how she’s either going to have to cut some throats or sleep her way to the top, that’s just not what she wanted. And she still doesn’t want it. 

She doesn’t talk about it until Sho watches her cook and asks what does she want.

“Journalism.”

“You, a journalist? Not an author? A journalist?”

“Why? Or should I be a model? Or you think I should marry rich?”

“You probably could,” Sho admits. “You’re pretty.”

“And he thinks I’m pretty,” she drawls. “Come on now, tell me more.”

“You’re aesthetically pleasing.”

“Did you just learn that word?” 

Sho rolls his eyes. “I mean. You’re pretty and you’re nice, and I guess people – and I’m not saying me – but someone else might like that combination. The perfect mix of pleasant and pretty. So to people, who aren’t people, I think they would find you extremely attractive.”

“But not you?”

“I don’t know,” and Sho laughs awkwardly. “I was the guy who would stand by the crosswalk and stare at pretty girls out of the corner of my eye. I would think up lines on how to ask them out, or if they want coffee. Sometimes, when a car’s coming too fast and they take a step forwards, I want to grab them by the hand and pull them back. When they ask me why, I’ll say that oh, I just wanted an excuse to hold on to you. But I never had the nerve to do it.”

“Do you think that would work?”

“Would it work on you?”

Keiko thinks about it for a moment and she smiles.

“Would you try it on me?”

“Maybe. Would you fall for it?” Sho asks, smiling.

“Maybe.” 

 

 

 

Keiko goes to Chiba once more and she asks if he wants to go Disneyland. Sho makes a face and so they go to the beach again. She takes the first train out and complains that Sho has it good, he doesn’t need to pay for a train fare. He just rolls his eyes and says yeah, “I guess being like this has its perks.”

Later, she throws sand at him and laughs when he runs away.

She has to buy fireworks from a small store with a guy who’s married to a girl who curiously asks if she’s going to play alone.

“I’ll be fine.”

The girl’s name is Becky and she helps Keiko pick out some snacks.

“I met my boyfriend, sorry, husband on that beach.”

Her eyes are grey and her smile is wide. Keiko thinks she’s gorgeous. Her husband’s name is Masaki and he cheerfully says he needs to go help restock some shelves. He leaves the two of them to chat.

“How did you meet him?” Keiko asks.

“Oh, I went out with some friends and I accidentally forgot my slippers. I ran back to get them and he picked them up.”

“And you fell in love at first sight,” Keiko deadpans.

Becky laughs, and shakes her head. “God, no. He tripped over his feet and threw the sandals at me. I thought he was the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

“And now?” 

“He still is.” Becky’s smile widens. “He asked me to marry him two years later and I was wearing the exact same slippers. Had no idea he would propose on that beach. I looked like a wreck because we just went swimming.”

Keiko thinks about it and sighs. “It must be nice, literally running towards something like that.”

“I don’t think you really plan it. It sort of just happens to you.” 

 

 

 

The fireworks are out and sky is dark over the water. It’s getting colder and Keiko walks across the beach one more time before she has to run for the train.

“Do you like love stories?”

“Sorry?”

“The girl in the store, who fell in love with the guy because of her slippers. You were smiling a lot,” Sho says awkwardly. “Do you like love stories?”

“I don’t really have a preference, but it just sounds so nice and easy. People get to fall in love; I get hit by cars and talk to ghosts.”

“I got hit by a car,” Sho mutters.

That part she didn’t know, and Keiko doesn’t know how to respond. She’s never really been good with that type of thing. She lets them talk, usually. They talk and then say how they were sad about it and how they miss their wife or husband or mother or father or everyone. 

“I got hit by a car, and I woke up and went on like this,” Sho continues. And that’s it. “I don’t think love stories sound easy. It’s more like fate or chance, or something and you have to deal with it, and what if terrible things happen? I wouldn’t want something so wonderful to have terrible things happen right after.”

“You know, I heard this thing about lovers,” Keiko cuts in suddenly. “They say that about five percent of people who fall with each other have been at the same place, at the same time at least once before they even truly meet each other. So they could just be walking right by each other, without even knowing that they just passed the person they’ll one day love.”

Sho’s confused and it suits him, a little. She likes when he doesn't know things. “How is that terrible?”

“It’s not,” and she shrugs. “It’s just, I was thinking about it when you said fate and chance. That’s all.” 

 

 

Shihori sends her photo of the restaurant with the floors torn up and Jun standing around and talking to construction workers. She sends Keiko messages of thanks and proclaiming love and saying that she’s the bestest friend ever.

Keiko would smile at this, because she usually does.

She wants Shihori to be happy and she wants Jun to get his restaurant and she wants to be happy for them.

So that doesn’t explain anything, why her hands shake and she closes her eyes and tells herself to breathe.

 

 

Truthfully, she has to help him move on. Keiko can’t keep him around forever.

You have to find your next life, Tomo told her. You become someone not quite who you are, but someone else to be but the centre, you’re still there. There’s something about you that’s who you were. It’s complicated, being reborn. Some of us are afraid of it.

She wonders if Tomo loved her, or who she once was.

But it didn’t matter, she knows that much. Tomohisa told her that he once fell in love with a girl who had a broken umbrella, and he held it over her head until they made it to the train station. It doesn’t matter that she was once you, because all I wanted to know is that you were alive and to see you before I go.

Keiko’s never had a boyfriend who actually gave a fuck.

It was usually a nice looking senpai at a goukon or maybe a handsome guy who sat across her in the library. There’d be awkward fumbling sex and then casual smiles and expectations of chocolates and bento, and Keiko wondered what was there for her in all of it. Just to make someone else happy, someone who she tries to care for but really, they have no substance between them.

So, when it turned out that a ghost cared for her more than any actual guy, she wanted to break something.

Keiko did, when Tomo left.

She pulled a plate out of a cupboard and dropped it on the ground because all she wanted to do was hear the shatter, watch it splinter, and at least she was the one breaking the plate. At least she made the choice to have a broken plate.

So she does know Sho has to move on and she won’t have broken plates. She shouldn’t answer anymore personal questions. Keiko has to focus and after that, pack her bags and move back to Kobe. She’ll stop writing. She’ll be a good girl and put on an ironed blouse and decent skirt, and bow her head and accept papers.

She shouldn’t be getting attached. 

It never seems to be the right time to ask, but Keiko has to. Sho’s standing on her balcony and she asks him, “What can I do to make you pass over?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I help you remember anything else?”

“Tell me a story?” he requests quietly.

They’re both staring at apartment buildings and trees and empty streets and yellowed lights. Keiko doesn’t know what story to tell him. Sho likes happy endings. A few days ago, she told him about a princess who pretended to be someone else, just anyone else, and a guy who took her to see the world and made her laugh and cry and scream. Keiko changes the ending of the story. She tells him the princess gave up her crown and got on a ship to sail to Paris, and he met her under the Eiffel Tower. 

“There was a man that married a girl who was weaving a beautiful cloth for him.”

“Doesn’t she leave him in the end? Because he finds out that she’s a crane.”

Keiko nods silently.

Sho keeps quiet and they listen for the wind whistling and Keiko wishes she could hear him breathing.

“That’s a sad ending,” he murmurs.

“I feel very sad right now.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask me why. Tell me how to help you.”

“Then tell me a story.”

“About what, Sho? About how I graduated into a not-so-wonderful economy? What about the time I fell asleep in an exam? Or the failed dates my mother sets me up on because if I have no direction, at least I’ll be taken care of? Oh, and how about when a ghost decided that he wanted to give a fuck because he fell in love with my past self, oh yeah, a winner right there. Just tell me what you want,” she hisses at him, “so I can help you leave.” 

“Why are you so upset at me?” he asks her, calm stare and all.

He must have been a salaryman. He must have been really smooth, with his clear eyes and there’s nothing threatening about him. Sho would push paper like a second nature, wouldn’t he? Maybe he was, or maybe he had a thing for gambling. Maybe he was something perfect, and had a job and was settled. 

“I can’t be upset? You asked me what I wanted. I want to be upset.” She lets out a frustrated sigh and tries not to hit the rail of the balcony with her palms. It’ll be rude and unladylike. But she’s shouting at him; she’s wants to be rude and unladylike. “I don’t know how to help you and you can’t stick around.”

“I forgot who I was for a very long time,” Sho snaps back. “I came back to this world and then I fell into darkness, and then suddenly I heard drilling or traffic and then I see darkness again. All I remember are the stupid things or useless things, or that you’re telling me stories that no one ever has. And you’re here and I’m here so why can’t you just let me be here until we figure it out? What’s the rush?”

“Because I want to move on with my life. I want to go and do something.”

“Move back to Kobe? Pretend you like it?”

She smiles wryly and shakes her head. “You have no right to comment on my life. You don’t matter. You’re going to disappear and be reborn into someone else who I won’t ever know. You don’t get to talk about that.”

“Why not?” he demands, “let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about the girl who chased me out of a restaurant for the sake of her darling best friend, to make her best friend’s boyfriend happy, and tells her stories with happy ending and yet you’re so inherently miserable.”

“I am not miserable.”

“Really now.” 

She falls silent and then walks right inside. Sho follows her. He closes the door behind him and she looks at the glass and at him, almost daring him to shatter it. He could do that. She’s met ghosts who can shatter windows and explode drinking glasses. She knows ghosts that could topple bookshelves. Keiko wants him to be angry; she just wants to see if he has the nerve because she’s angry. She doesn’t want to be the only angry person here because what’s the point? Because this, he has no right to argue with her. Not about all of this.

It doesn’t matter to him. 

“You don’t know me,” Keiko tells him quietly, “You don’t anything about me.”

“I know enough.”

“You’re dead. You don’t need to know me.”

“Why, because you’re waiting for the next ghost to come along to keep you company?” he snarls. “Oh yeah, have I begun to bore you or something?”

“You think I want to do this? Talk to people who leave me once I make them happy? Do I look like I enjoy this? I’m just doing what I have to do!” She can’t help shouting at him. Keiko wants to shout, wants to throw things, wants to shake him by the shoulders. But she won’t touch him. She’s not going to touch him because why should she? He’ll be cold and she’ll feel suffocated and not because she’s who she is and he’s going to cease to exist, but because she’s so angry right now because whatever he says, it matters. and he made her laugh and he destroyed her toaster. 

“You’re saying that you feel compelled to help me?”

“All I’m saying is that one day I nearly got hit by a car and then I woke up and could talk to ghosts, and they won’t leave me alone until they can rest.” 

“Do you want me to leave you alone, then?” he demands.

No, she wants to say. I don’t know anymore. Suddenly I remember what it’s like to have someone here to laugh with and to talk about stupid things or to chase out of the shower. Why do the people who make me feel like this, why are they always dead. Keiko feels incapable. She feels stupid and useless because why can’t she love someone who’s actually there? Someone who can tell her to buck up when work is bad, or someone who can buy her a replacement toaster when it’s broken; why can’t she love someone like that?

So instead she mutters, “You can do whatever you want,” as though that’s going to solve anything.

“I didn’t ask for this and I know you didn’t either.”

“Are you going to apologise?” Keiko asks him.

“No. I don’t think you’d accept that.”

He’s right. She wouldn’t.

“If I go,” he asks instead, “Would you miss me?” 

She’s going to lie, Keiko will lie, “I have a life to live, don’t I?” as though that’s enough.

Keiko never asked for this. She doesn’t know if this is just what happens because it happens. Some people go to space and other people write books. She talks to ghosts.

She never asks to care and she never knows if it’s the right thing to do. 

She’s touched a ghost before and they’re cold; they have no heartbeat and it’s obvious why. 

Sho touches her, his hand on her cheek, leaning in close.

“If I go, I will miss you,” he whispers, and Sho’s kiss is not fleeting and it’s not cold. Sho kisses her and Keiko pulls him closer, and this is too greedy, this is actually stupid and she’s going to get hurt later. But it’s gentle and it’s promising something and she wants more and—no, just no.

She wrenches back and shakes her head.

“Why did you do that?” she whispers.

“I want you to remember me.” 

“That’s not fair.”

Sho nods, but she rushes forwards and grabs him by the cloth of his white shirt and kisses him fully, wholly. She wonders if her heart is racing, if she could bring him to life with what warmth she possesses. She thinks of fairytales and sleeping curses and she thinks of how this isn’t her fairytale. Just one kiss won’t fix him. One kiss won’t fix her either. But Keiko kisses him, mouth against his and he’s cold like marble in winter. 

When they break apart, she’s trying to calm herself down by breathing slowly, and he looks torn into a million pieces, as though they’ve just destroyed something. Or maybe Keiko’s hurt him.

Some part of her wants him to remember her in his next life. If the last memory of who he is now should be anything, Keiko wishes it could be this, just this. 

It’s not even fair, to either of them.

 

 

She lets him lie down next to her that night. Keiko mumbles that she should write a story and sell it. About a stupid girl who falls in love with a stupid boy. Maybe she’ll change it up. Maybe he can be alive and she can be the ghost.

Sho puts his head on her chest and says, “I can hear your heart.”

She closes her eyes and feels a cold hand finding hers.

“Your heartbeat is strong,” he murmurs. “Isn’t that a good thing to know?”

“Do you really like my stories?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“When you talk to me, I remember things. I remember I studied economics and that I played soccer. I remember trying to surf and falling into the water and being knocked over by the waves. It’s nice talking to you, because it doesn’t matter what we think of each other.” 

Keiko squeezes his hand tight. She doesn’t have to let go, not right now. 

“Tokyo, right?” she asks him. “Was it in Tokyo?”

“It must have been,” Sho mumbles. 

“You must have been staring at a pretty girl.”

He laughs and she holds tight. What else can she do? 

 

 

Keiko understands that she’s not exactly normal. 

She knows that she shouldn’t let herself care so much and that these conversations about what she wants and what he remembers are something too personal. She should form a connection with someone real, someone who is solid and there for her and buys her flowers and then asks her to come up for coffee when they have no intention of drinking it. 

It’s not that Keiko doesn’t want normal. Keiko tried normal and that was a job that suffocated her and people that she wanted to love but she can’t just do that. Keiko knows that if she wants to be with someone, then she can be with someone. But she didn’t, not then and well, the only other real attachment she formed was with her past life’s lover’s spirit. Which is pretty messed up, isn’t it.

She knows that it’s not really what people do everyday.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to be like everyone else.

But Keiko just wants something to work out. She wants to start believing again, believing in something.

She starts sending out portfolios and resumes. She photocopies old articles she wrote for her university newspaper, she writes about restaurants and cat cafes, and she writes a short story about meeting a ghost on a beach. 

Sho is quiet when she works. 

Keiko needs to drink some tea to calm her nerves. She has to co-exist with Sho and she has to do something about everything else. 

When someone publishes her review on cheap cafes, she sends them more stories and writes about how to redo a wardrobe. She’s not sure if that’s helpful to anyone, but she just needs to get it out there. 

“You don’t stay still, do you?” 

“What?” 

Keiko’s spinning around in her chair and Sho’s sitting cross-legged on her bed. 

“You can’t just let things be as they are. You’re either cooking or trying to take me to places I might have been. Either that or you’re writing or spamming people with your list of qualifications.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s something I like about you,” he says and it seems to be truthful. 

It’s flattery. It’s nice, it’s what guys say to girls when they want to kiss them and he’s kissed her and only that night. She hasn’t kissed him since because she doesn’t want to think about tomorrow, about the next moment, about what happens after if she kisses him once more and he fades away like light when the sun falls. 

Keiko knows this will not work out.

This is not the something she puts her faith in.

“You know, I wish things could be different,” Sho tells her, “I wish I had been happier. I could have done things. I could have been someone.”

This is personal. This is Sho giving her his honesty and this is something she shouldn’t care about.

“I should have gone to Egypt or Turkey. I should have gotten a tan. Have you ever gotten a tan? I’ve gotten sunburnt from when I was in Okinawa. I was in the sun all day and I was red, so red and burnt. It was the type of burn that sears when you touch and I doused myself in calamine and yelled so loudly my father told me to stop being such a baby about it. It’s only a bit of sun, life has much worse things than sunburn. He’s right. But still,” Sho’s laugh is hollow and sad, and maybe he really wasn’t happy back then, “I wish I could have done all that.”

“Do you think you would have been happier, if things were different?” she asks. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think I never had the courage to do what I wanted. I just did what was expected,” he laughs a little sadly, “I thought that would make me happy. And I wasn’t happy. But I didn’t know anything else. So I just did it. And told myself that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine.”

Keiko knows that she’s helping him. She knows that he has to find some sort of peace to move on.

But he’s sad and she wants to change it and that part is the part which isn’t okay. It’s irrational and won’t make anything better. 

“I know what you’re talking about,” Keiko says softly. “But you had the strength to keep going.”

“No I didn’t. I guess we quit in different ways.” 

“Me,” she sighs. “I quit. I became a shut-in. I didn’t do anything. This will sound stupid, but I saved up all my money for the purpose of being a shut-in.”

“So what’s changed?”

“I don’t know.” 

“But you’re changing that, aren’t you?” 

She doesn’t know that either. 

Sho’s looking at her in a way no one else has. She thinks of how he said she was pretty. She thinks of the way other people look at her, just a small glimpse of a girl who did the right thing but gave up. Sho looks at her and it’s different, as though he wants to know why, as though he would sit and listen and not tell her that she should have done something else. As though what she wants might matter.

But that doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. 

Keiko is just a fleeting moment for him and Sho will forget her in his next life.

“Do you want to move on, Sho?”

He looks at her, hands clenching and unclenching. Keiko selfishly wants him to be confused and torn between choices. 

“Would you miss me?” he asks her.

She answers, “I have a life to live.”

Sho gives her a funny little smile and she must have hurt his feelings.

Good.

She’s being unfair, but good. She’s glad she’s hurt his feelings. 

 

 

 

He asks her about the haraegushi. And the first time, “And the salt and stuff you were throwing at me.”

Keiko’s reading her email from some magazine that wants to know if she wants to write a story about gardening. Keiko doesn’t know a thing about gardening. 

“When I started seeing ghosts, I started talking to them. And then sometimes I would help my friends. Then there was this one time we had a cultural festival at my university and we turned a building into a haunted house, but then it really did become haunted. My mother found Nino’s grandfather, Ninomiya-san, on some website somewhere and he got me one and I’ve been using it ever since.” 

“I thought it’d be like, inherited or something.”

“Would it make it more interesting if it were?” 

“Yeah,” Sho admits sheepishly, “I just thought, you know. There’d be some story and it would have been passed from generation to generation since god knows when.”

“Sorry I’m not interesting enough for you,” Keiko deadpans.

“You’re interesting. The haraegushi, not so much.” 

“So you think I’m interesting,” she drawls with much satisfaction and a smile, “Do go on.” Sho hides his face behind his hands and she grins. 

 

 

 

She makes a call to Shihori one night.

“Hello moonbeam,” Shihori says cheerily and Keiko smiles too easily. “Are you okay?”

“How’s the restaurant?”

“Being fixed up.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Keiko mumbles, “If you could just find people to take you apart and put you back together and you’re pretty and shinier and everything is working and people want to be around you? Why aren’t there people renovators?”

“I think plastic surgery is the beginning step to that.”

“True.”

They’re quiet for a moment.

Keiko’s standing outside on her balcony and Sho is in the living room, sitting on the floor and watching the news. He told her he hadn’t seen the news in a long time. Every night, he has to watch the news. Every morning, Keiko has to pull herself out of bed to get him the newspapers. And he remembers it. He knows about financial deficits and plane crashes and the hot artists of the moment. He knows about predicted storms and how the baby giraffe in the zoo is growing up healthily. 

“Remember when we were in uni?” Shihori says suddenly.

“When?”

“That time I forgot to bring my stuff to tutorial. We were being marked. And then I forgot to bring my answers. And what did you do?”

Keiko laughs. “I said I didn’t have mine as well. I didn’t pull out my book and I pretended I also forgot mine.”

“You lost marks with me. You could have either saved yourself or given me your answers,” Shihori recalls.

“Why are you thinking about that?” Keiko asks her. 

“I just,” Shihori sighs, “I just wish I could be there for you the way you are for me. You sound so sad, Keiko. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

They’re silent for a bit before Shihori asks her, “If I got married, would you still be my best friend?”

“You know, the boyfriend should be the best friend. I read that somewhere.”

“What, in a magazine?”

Keiko smiles a little at that.“Yeah. I did. I thought it was stupid.”

“Maybe it works for someone else.”

“Not for us?”

“You’re still my best friend. Jun can be my boyfriend. If you love me and he loves me, you both can love each other. Or like each other.”

“I don’t mind Jun,” Keiko admits. “Actually, I do like him. It’s just so fun to give him a hard time, you know. Once in awhile. It keeps him on his toes.”

“Like that time you had dinner with us and didn’t say a word?”

“Well,” Keiko scoffs, “If he can’t endure that, then he’s weak.”

“And how you told him I wanted super expensive Prada for my birthday when I really wanted flowers?”

“If he believed that, then he’s an idiot.”

“And. And,” and Shihori’s laughing and sighing and Keiko wants to think that she’s smiling, “You know. I want you to be happy as well.”

“I’ll be happy, Shi-chan.”

“I’m going to believe that.”

“Night, sunshine.”

“Goodnight, moonbeam.”

 

 

 

It’s not so surprising when he comes barging into her bathroom. Sho doesn’t need to shower. He doesn’t get dirty and he doesn’t get itchy and he has no scent whatsoever. He can touch things and eat them but he doesn’t get a pound or make an imprint. Sho has barged in on her before, but that was to make her laugh or to hear her shout.

Keiko has to wash her hair. She has to remind herself not to eat too much chocolate and that people will notice if she wears the same outfit twice in a week. It’s tedious and sometimes she wants to go braless or maybe wear oversize t-shirts in the summer, but she can’t. 

He pulls the shower curtain back and she throws her sponge at him. She turns off the water, ignores him and takes the towel. 

“Why aren’t you screaming?” Sho complains.

“Because you haven’t given me something to scream about,” Keiko says snootily. “Besides, you did this to me two weeks ago so it’s not a big shocker,” she continues, wrapping the towel around herself and squeezing the water out of her hair. “Did you need something?”

“Not really.” 

Keiko stares at him and she swears, he gets a little colour on his cheeks.

“Did you have a girlfriend?”

He shakes his head. “I dated. Didn’t really connect. But not at the time, no.”

Keiko starts on her skincare and Sho stares in awe as she starts with toner and then essence and she puts a little bit of essence in her hand, turning and smoothing it over his cheeks. Soft gentle pats and then circular motions and then over his jaw, gently pushing and following the tense lines. 

“You’re not offended?” he asks.

“Well, you aren’t really aging so this might be a waste of my essence,” Keiko teases.

“No, I mean.”

“The naked thing?”

“Yeah,” Sho mumbles, “It was rude.”

Keiko shrugs, starting on moisturiser. “You’ve seen me naked before.”

“Do you want to see me naked?”

“You mean, you’ll show me yours because you saw mine? How generous.”

“When you put it that way,” he complains, “now I just seem intrusive.”

He now sleeps in her bed and he’s been eating her food. Sho edited her resume and he went through her notebooks, read about each and every encounter. He leaves newspapers lying around the house and Keiko misses Jill. She knows Jill can see ghosts and she thinks Jill might just paw at Sho until Sho gives in and scratches him on the tummy. Everyone’s a sucker for Jill. 

She dries her hair and Sho lurks around awkwardly.

Keiko decides to tease him, sly smile and all. “Did you like it?”

“What?” he asks, startled out of his thoughts.

“Seeing me naked,” and she brushes out her hair, letting it fall over her shoulder. Keiko waits and waits as Sho gulps and so she asks again, “Did you like seeing me naked?”

He stammers and mutters and immediately goes running out of the bathroom.

Keiko cackles with laughter.

 

 

 

“Can I see you naked?” she asks him a few days later. “I mean, you offered.”

Sho turns a deep shade of pink. 

Keiko laughs, and it feels good. 

 

 

 

Am I warm, she asks. They’re pressed against each other in her single bed. It’s late and she’s tired, and he’s proofreading something she wrote about shopping for curtains. Some magazine asked if she could do it and she said yes because well, there’s a paycheck there. 

Am I warm when you touch me? Can you feel my heart racing? What are you thinking when you touch me?

Sho’s hand is in hers and Keiko wants to fall asleep; she just wants to sleep and feel safe. Just for a little bit.

 

 

She should ask when is he leaving.

She doesn’t.

Keiko should be helping him.

She tries.

This isn’t meant to last.

She ignores that. 

 

 

 

She goes to an interview for a magazine and she’s not sure how it’s going to turn out.

Keiko tells her mother she’s interviewing for jobs. Her mother tells her to walk carefully, eat properly. Just take care of yourself, keep in touch. Keiko knows her mother is just worried for her and she wants her mother to stop fretting. I’m alive and kicking, you raised a good daughter. 

Sho’s been quiet the whole day. 

Keiko knows she has to build a life for herself that’s just for her and for a future that means an income for one person and no ghost roommate. She doesn’t care if his feelings are hurt because Keiko has to keep going. She’s not going to sit there and stare as the world passes her by.

“Keiko?”

When he says her name, she thinks of how he said she should be calling him Sho-san and she didn’t. She likes when he says her name, how rarely that is. 

Sho knows her insecurities; Sho knows she’s been skinny dipping. 

Keiko knows he wasn’t happy. 

They know enough to be more than strangers, enough to be friends.

She’s walking home from the train station. Sho’s walking with her. It’s late and no one is there to hear her talk to a ghost. To anyone else, she’s either talking to herself or to the vapour in the air. They keep walking. 

His fingers graze the back of her hand and then they jerk away.

Keiko feels his hand brush against hers. 

Their shoulders touch and Sho stops.

“You keep touching me, we need to hold hands,” he announces and takes her hand as they walk. “Because you keep touching me.”

She smiles and lets him hold her hand the entire walk. 

Later, Sho kisses her under the streetlights with a hand on her waist and another cupping her face. He kisses her and she hopes that if he keeps touching her, she can give that warmth to him. It’s sad and hopeful. Keiko’s mouth on his and his tongue in her mouth. She likes, wants it. And isn’t that terrible, because Keiko’s falling back into a pattern of wanting what she won’t have. 

 

 

 

He’s gone the next morning.

She rushes out of the room, checks the kitchen.

Keiko runs out onto the balcony.

She looks around the living room.

There are newspapers on the table. 

There’s no one.

Sho’s gone.

He didn’t even say goodbye. 

Keiko has no right to be hurt. She knows that life is not logical. Keiko knows that this isn’t really her problem, and she could have said no and she chose to take it on so she has no right to be angry.

But she can’t say anything for an hour.

She might be happier just not talking, maybe packing a bag and moving to Okinawa where she’ll feel the sun on her skin and burn up hot until she’s raw and red. and at least she’ll feel something else, something that happens to normal people when they go out into the sun.

Keiko feels hurt, she feels herself about to break or shout or scream or cry because this is not fair but she also has no right.

She chose to help him. This didn’t have to be her problem.

She let herself care. 

Keiko knows this is messed up.

She could have gone on dates. She could have kept working at her old office. She could have ignored the ghosts from the first day she saw them.

But she didn’t. 

 

 

Keiko rereads her old journals. She reads about the little boy who was accompanied by his pet puppy. She reads about the man who used to sing outside a train station. She reads every encounter that she should have ignored because she could have made friends with people who don’t see the departed spirits of the deceased; she wouldn’t be here. 

When she reaches the last entry, she turns the page to start writing. 

Neat letters spell an address for her. 

A hospital. 

This isn’t her writing.

 

 

 

Sakurai Sho. Age thirty two. Comatose.

Keiko stands in a hospital room, and she hears beeps. She hears nurses bustling in and out of rooms to check on patients, to take their blood pressure and their temperature. She can see white walls and she sees a bedside table with a clock. 

His eyes are closed. He’s wearing blue hospital pyjamas. There’s an IV in his left arm. He’s silent and empty, and she can only stare. 

Sakurai-san is in the room you’re asking after, the nurse at the counter said, and you are?

She lied. Keiko said she was a friend from awhile ago. She’s been overseas. She was in Egypt. She just wants to see him after so long.

He hasn’t woken up, the nurse said. But he’s on the fourth floor, room 510.

It’s visiting hours. She sits on a chair by the bed and looks at the silent man in the hospital bed. She sits and she meets Sakurai Sho for the first time. 

 

 

 

“So this is you.”

Nothing.

“You aren’t dead, are you.” 

She’s been there for eighteen minutes. Took her eighteen minutes to even say that. 

“Between a snowman and an umbrella, which would you draw?” 

She looks at his heart monitor and all she knows is that his heart is working. She wants to touch him. This Sho is warm. But he’s lifeless and he’s not laughing and he’s not complaining about sunburn.

Keiko smiles listlessly and continues, “I would draw a snowman. Because it’s cute.” 

“Then your heart melts quickly.”

She turns and he’s there. Standing at the end of the bed and looking at himself. Sho looks tired, his eyes are dark and he stares at his own body, a figure that’s broken and alone. 

“If you draw a snowman, it means your heart melts quickly. If you draw an umbrella, it means that you wish to be loved underneath that safe umbrella as the rain falls down around you,” he continues, looking at his own face. “In the end, doesn’t it mean that we’re all lonely?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Keiko whispers. “You really aren’t dead, are you?”

“Do you hate me?” Sho asks her.

“I want to.”

“Do you hate me?” he repeats. “Yes or no.” 

She can only be honest with him, because it’s how they are. “I think I hate myself right now.” 

“But do you hate me?” Sho presses. 

She shakes her head silently.

“This is the last time I can see you,” Sho says quietly. “I just wanted to see you one last time.”

He looks at himself once more and Keiko looks at the Sho who’s not quite there. And he laughs and it’s without humour.

“Five percent of people.”

“What?”

“You said five percent of people at the same place, same time. Does this count?” he asks her, laughing and she starts laughing as well because it’s not even funny. It’s not funny at all but fuck that, fuck that because she can only laugh. Technically they were at the same place at the same time and yes, he might have been his own departed spirit when they kissed, the departed spirit of a comatose body, but that should count for something. 

“When did you know?”

“I’ve always known.”

There must be a shatter in the distance. It must be her sanity; it must be whatever she had left within herself to hold it together. “You’ve known from the start you weren’t dead?” 

“You didn’t ask.” 

“You said you got hit by a car,” Keiko snaps.

“I said I got hit by a car and woke up like this, I never said I died.” 

“So that makes it okay?” Keiko asks him. “Why did you write down the address?”

“Because I just wanted to see you one last time,” he repeats.

Keiko shakes her head slowly. She opens her mouth to tell him no, you don’t get to say something like that. Not now.

“Keiko, I’m sorry.”

“What did you even want from me?”

“I don’t know,” Sho falters over the next part. “I’m sorry.”

“You should have told me.”

Sho hesitates, and he’s looking at her with shame in his eyes and Keiko looks from him and then to the comatose state he really is in. 

“I don’t know what I should do,” he says quietly. “I don’t know.”

This is not a conversation Keiko wants to have. This is not her problem. This is all on Sho. This is not her problem and she will not tell him what to do or how to feel. Keiko does not have a right to that; Keiko won’t allow herself that.

“Would you miss me?” Sho asks.

“That’s not really relevant, is it.”

He reaches out to touch her and Keiko steps away.

“Don’t make the last time I’ll see you so terrible.”

That’s not fair, she wants to say. You don’t get to ask that of me, not after all this. 

“Please,” she says mechanically, “Take care of yourself.”

She walks away and Sho calls after her.

“Keiko, please.”

Keiko forces herself not to look back.

 

 

 

If anyone saw her crying, Keiko will say that she has hayfever. Or maybe she got bad news. Perhaps she broke up with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend, she will say, he was an asshole. He would make me smile and not tell me what was really going on in his head. I met him and we didn’t get along at all. 

What a horrible person.

 

 

 

Tokyo is alive, with too many people on the train that evening and restaurants overflowing with chatter.

She sits with her bowl of udon and looks at a table across the room. There’s a couple in their highschool uniforms, with nervous smiles and laughter. Maybe they’re skipping cram school.

She pays her bill, walks out into the city.

The night is dark and with no answers. If she asked, she’d have no stars. 

The billboards promise her snacks and idols with CDs. The noise doesn’t drown out her thoughts and Keiko walks with the crowd. 

When she stands at the crosswalk, she looks to her side and there’s a guy in a suit standing there. He’s looking straight ahead.

If Sho were here, if he told her hand, she wouldn’t have complained. 

But he’s not. So Keiko crosses the road and she goes home. 

 

 

 

Shihori calls her. “Hello, moonbeam. Want some dinner?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Keiko’s not fine. She’s lying in bed and staring blankly at the wall. 

“I’m coming over.”

“No, don’t.”

“Keiko,” Shihori snaps.

“I don’t want you here,” Keiko insists, trying to muffle any horrible noises she makes with her hand. She might be crying. She doesn’t want Shihori to see her like this. She’s shaking like a leaf in the wind; her eyes are warm and itchy and she’s shaking and shaking and no, Shihori doesn’t need to know all this. Shihori doesn’t need to know what else is so stupid and insane and just, no. “I don’t need you here.”

“Yes you do.”

 

 

 

Shihori is there within the hour. She plops herself on Keiko’s bed and they have a sleepover like when they were little. Crammed together and too tired to talk because they used their energy up on something else. It used to be running around the park or shopping or going to a movie. Right now, Keiko doesn’t know how to say anything. 

“Do you want to tell me?” Shihori asks.

Keiko doesn’t know how.

“Keiko, if it’s difficult then just say one part of it and go either forwards or backwards from there.”

“The ghost I chased out of Jun’s restaurant, he kissed me and apparently he’s not dead.”

“Did you fall in love with him?”

It’s unexpected and it’s not something she considered at all. Shihori offers Keiko a one armed hug and Keiko smiles bitterly and asks, “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing.”

Keiko doesn’t believe her. But there’s nothing she can do about that. She can only close her eyes and carry on. 

 

 

 

Keiko gets the position as a writer and gets set up in a cubicle. Her cubicle neighbour is a nice guy called Satoshi. She writes about cafes and music and gardening. Sometimes she writes about old ladies and their marriage stories. People send letters into the magazine, and Keiko reads them. 

When she makes tea, she makes Satoshi a cup.

Some nights after work, she’ll take the train and tell the hospital reception that she’s here to see the patient in room 510. 

“He hasn’t woken up.”

“I know.”

And she’ll sit there and she’ll try to hate Sakurai Sho, age thirty-two and comatose.

Sho lied to her. Sho kissed her. Sho interrupted her in the shower.

He would eat her food and say she’s burnt the fried rice. He would leave newspapers everywhere.

Sho does not come to find her. Sho is silent and pale and there is nothing for him to say. 

Keiko finds different ways to hate Sho but she does not actually hate him. 

Sho talked to her. Sho said she was more pretty than sexy. Sho destroyed her toaster and made her laugh until she was crying. 

Her parents think that the journalism is a brave step. It’s magazine writing, but it’s a step. Is this what you want to do, and Keiko says yes. This is what I want to do.

There’s one night when it’s raining and she’s typing a lifestyle piece on Osaka food.

She thinks that it would make sense. She should go to Osaka, where the cars are on the other side of the road and the signs are even brighter than the busiest night in Shibuya. 

 

 

 

Keiko goes to Osaka that weekend and she takes photographs and asks shop owners where they think the good food is. When she’s eaten her way through one part of the city, Keiko walks through the streets and watches as the sky darkens.

She thinks of Sho, if he’s cold, if the nurse has come to taken his stats.

 

 

 

On a Friday night, Satoshi asks if she wants to get drinks. Or dinner.

“I have something planned already,” Keiko says apologetically.

“Ah,” and his smile is lazy and curious, “Boyfriend?”

“No. Not really. I’m not sure.”

His smile widens and now he really is interested, leaning on the cubicle ledge and looking down at her. Satoshi is tanned and he goes fishing on the weekends. He didn’t really plan to write. He never even intended to move to Tokyo. Satoshi drifts from coast to coast in search of colour and the breeze.

“So you’re single?”

“I think so,” she says. “What about you, Ohno-kun?” 

“I’m single.”

Two single people who get along and work together might be able to date.

They can talk about the city or who is dating whom. Ohno Satoshi could meet Shihori and Jun and they’d all laugh together over things that don’t matter. Maybe Jun will cook for them and Satoshi could help. Shihori and Keiko could sit in the living room, giggling with a bottle of wine and saying what great guys they are. 

It should happen.

“Single, but unavailable.”

“What?” She lets out nervous laughter. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“I meant you,” Satoshi tells her. “I’ll see you on Monday, Keiko-chan.”

 

 

She sits in room 510 and she reaches out and lets her fingertips graze the back of his hand. 

This Sho is warm. He has blood running through his veins, he has a heartbeat. 

“You’re horrible. You’re horrible because I think my coworker was going to ask me out and now he thinks I’m not available. I hope you’re happy because he was cute and he’s nice and I could probably have his babies. My mother called me last week. She’s asking about grandchildren.”

Keiko looks at the empty face of Sakurai Sho, how his hair needs a trim. She wonders if his family comes to see him. It’s a private room after all. 

“Shihori-chan said Jun-kun freaked out over the floors for his restaurant. They decided to change things. I saw her for dinner and she told me I looked sad. I blame you for that too.”

 

 

Her editor enjoys her work and tells her to write what she wants. Keep it lifestyle, but what you want people to read. 

Keiko decides she wants to go to Hokkaido for the weekend.

Her editor raises an eyebrow and repeats, “Hokkaido.”

“It’s far away. I could interview locals, try the food. Do a contemporary view of Hokkaido during the off-season.”

Hokkaido is far. It’s the end of earth; it’s where the night falls quickly and Keiko has never been but it’s far away. And she wants to go far, she wants to see what isn’t in front of her.

Maybe she can leave it all behind. 

 

 

After Hokkaido, she goes to Fukuoka. 

Keiko stands in the tower, her hands pressed against the glass as she looks down upon the city. 

She thinks of the beach, of how she said there were better stars in Kobe.

These are lights, not stars.

Why is she thinking of that, why won’t it just stop? 

 

 

 

She returns from Fukuoka and Shihori asks her, “Are you okay?” 

“Not yet,” Keiko says. 

Shihori nods like she understands.

“I’m thinking about the time we were in high school and I forgot my homework. I could have just copied yours, but you decided you’ll pretend to have forgotten it as well,” Shihori recalls.

Their teacher made an example of them both, called them slackers and said they wouldn’t get into any good university if that would be their attitude. 

“Probably not my brightest moment,” Keiko remarks. Shihori nods and they’re both smiling. It’s nothing to be happy about, but it’s just that she knows what Shihori is trying to say.

“You’ll have me, you know. I can’t make this better, but you’ll have me.”

 

 

 

Sometimes, she’ll see people following her and passing through walls.

Keiko wants to call out and ask if they’re okay.

She doesn’t.

 

 

 

She starts writing about society. And this isn’t just high fliers and rich girls marrying into a richer family or idols who say outrageous things. Keiko starts writing about her generation; she starts thinking about that time she got scolded by a man because she was chasing her friends down the street with a haraegushi.

Keiko writes about the next life, she writes about tradition and how little she knew and how much she had to learn. 

It’s longer than any article she’s submitted but Satoshi reads it over for her and says, “It sounds like you’ve really been there, you know, with the knowledge of spirits and purification.” 

Keiko says she knows a guy. “You want to meet him? He charges per the question.” Satoshi laughs it off and says she should hand this in to Okada-san, he’ll like it.

Her editor does like it and he peers over his reading glasses and tells her honestly, “I wasn’t expecting this of you.”

Keiko smiles.

“I didn’t expect this of myself either.”

 

 

 

Keiko uses a weekend to go to Chiba and she takes a camera. She goes to farms and asks if the industry is robbing their profit. She eats fresh tomatoes and asks about the wholesale markets. 

She pats a cow, drinks whole cream milk. 

Keiko stops by the beach. 

When the sun sets, she takes a photo and she thinks that she might miss him.

 

 

 

Keiko has questions. She wants to know if people see her as an adult, or is she the product of a generation who’s had it too good? She looks at her degree hanging above her desk.

Keiko calls her mother.

“You worked, before you had me. Right?”

“Yes, I was an elevator girl.”

Keiko asks her mother if that was hard. How many hours? What was the pay? She asks about the rules and the standards, about the tolerance she must have built. 

It’s an honest conversation and when she’s done, her mother’s given Keiko numbers of former colleagues. It’s late and her mother excuses herself.

“I should have slept a bit ago, Kei-chan.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I really appreciate it.”

“You know, you seem different.”

Keiko didn’t really notice it, so she has to ask. “How?”

“Like you want something. I’m glad. I was worried about you.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Keiko says truthfully, “Not quite. I know I want to be a journalist. But I’m writing things like these. And I know that I don’t want to stay still and be hopeless.”

 

 

 

When she meets these women, she smiles and wonders if that would have been her awhile ago. She would have been in that elevator with a silk scarf tied neatly at her neck and welcoming people in and out. Keiko wouldn’t have wanted more, she would just say that they’re going up and then going down.

Life is up and down, one of the ladies says. Sometimes you keep going down but during that time, you need to remember that life will also go up later on. 

Keiko takes a voice recorder to every single interview and she plays them over at night. She listens to her own voice, and laughs at herself. 

This isn’t some expose on elevator girls, but her recorded self makes it seem like some big thing.

When she takes a break, Keiko watches a movie. It’s something foreign with subtitles and a guy’s brandishing a whip, looking at relics of the past.

 

 

 

It rains for three days straight.

The entire city is damp and cold and the sky is as grey as the buildings. Keiko’s umbrella is red. She bought it at a conbini on the way to work the moment she felt droplets on her head. 

There’s no reason for her to visit Sho every single day but she does. Keiko brings her journals and she reads every entry out loud for him just as Sho did so long ago. 

She goes from the start. She goes from the very first day and she tells him about some of the ghosts would follow her to class. There was a ghost who had a crush on Shihori.

“Actually, there were a few of them.”

She doesn’t try to hate him and she doesn’t get angry. Keiko doesn’t cry either. 

More than anything, she finds herself wishing that he can wake up and laugh at her stories or ask for more. 

Keiko tells him about one of the horrible dates she went on during college. It was a double date, and it ended with Keiko deliberately spilling her Coke on her own dress so that she and Shihori could bail early.

“I liked that you thought I was pretty,” she confesses. “I liked that it was you saying it.”

Keiko sits by his bed and reaches out her hand to slip it into his.

“If I asked you to, would you wake up?”

They’ve held hands before. She’s felt his cold hand for an entire night, she knows that any part of him would be cool to touch and no promise of anything. This is different. This is warmth, this is who he was and he could still be here. 

“Were you really alone? I always wanted to know what you were doing. You said you studied economics so I had this idea that you were really boring or that you would sit in a room and look at graphs and stats and tell everyone that bleak times lie ahead. And in your spare time, I thought you would read lots of boring books but sometimes you like to go for walks through parks. If you travelled, it would be to Dubai and then Europe.” Keiko smiles at that. “You know, despite it all, I still thought you were really lonely.”

She doesn’t know about his family. She doesn’t even know when’s his birthday. 

“Do you think I fell in love with you? If it were the other way around, would you have fallen for me?”

His heart monitor is a steady beep. Sho said she had a strong heartbeat. She wants to listen to it, the way he pressed his ear to her to hear it. But she doesn’t. 

“You’re good looking too, you know. You said I was pretty, so I’ll tell you that I thought you were good looking. Would you like me for my looks? I liked you because you were supposed to be honest. Turns out you’re not honest.”

She wishes she could have met him some other way.

Maybe if they had been standing at a traffic light. Maybe if she was standing at a cross walk and he was a metre away. 

Would they have honest words?

Maybe she would have ignored him. Keiko doesn't know. She wishes she could know.

“I know that you don’t know if you should wake up. I know that you must be lonely and confused. I’m not sorry for being hurtful. I was hurting too, you know? Because when I was around you, everything else that made me sad started becoming something for me to overcome. I didn’t even realise I was so sad. Did you know I wrote an article about women working in the eighties and nineties? I met all these ladies and they were my mother’s friends. My editor says I can go far. Maybe I should go so far away that whatever is hurting now, we can just leave it here. If you wake up, then it won’t hurt anymore.” 

She doesn’t want to be crying. 

But Keiko tries to blink back tears and it just makes it worse. 

“Sho. I wish you could wake up. Because then you can go to Egypt. Or maybe if you want to tan that badly, you can go to Okinawa. There’ll be nice girls who want you. And then you can drink beer with friends. If you wake up, you can eat at Jun-kun’s restaurant. Introduce yourself to Shihori as the guy who haunted the place. It’ll make them scream. Is it dark where you are? Are you somewhere in the city?”

It floods at her, at that moment, and Keiko smiles through it all.

“I want you to be happy, even if the life you wake up to doesn’t have me in it.” 

 

 

 

She writes about five percent of people who fall in love but never knew that at one point, they were at the same place at the same time. 

It’s a fluff piece and she reads that somewhere in the world, a long time ago, people were believed to have fallen from the sky. They would be joined together to one other person. 

They’d fall apart, and search for their other half.

Sometimes you just miss them; sometimes they will be running towards you.

 

 

 

She looks at the night sky and there’s never a star in sight. Not with the light pollution.

Keiko wonders if Sho hears her at all. 

In her own head, she writes a story for him. About a man who got hit by a car. He fell into a coma and met a girl who made him laugh. But when he woke up, she wasn’t there. But he packed a bag and travelled the world. He will go to Egypt and Mexico and then he’ll go to Denmark and Shanghai. He’ll go everywhere, so far that sadness can’t catch up to him. She tells herself a story and she makes it a happy ending. 

 

 

 

After much fuss and panic and stress and another very long month of Shihori thinking that Jun desperately needs to take a yoga class to calm down, the restaurant is ready to for business. 

When Jun’s restaurant opens, Keiko is there on the first night for the after hours celebration and Nino tags along, “For payment of my services,” and Jun rolls his eyes but gives him free pasta anyways.

“Your services were months ago and I was the one paying you,” Keiko points out and Nino immediately starts telling Keiko how lovely she looks in attempts to change the conversation.

Keiko looks at cream coloured walls and the light filling the space. She remembers dusty grounds and doors slamming and it shouldn’t be something nice but it is. At least to her.

Shihori throws her arms around Keiko, “I’m glad you made it. It wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t here.”

“Oh baby, your boyfriend’s watching us.”

Shihori giggles and links arms with Keiko, taking her into the kitchen and handing her a spoon. They lean over the counter and share a bowl of gelato. Shihori tells Keiko all about the customers who came in, the minor freak out Jun had in the kitchen halfway through and she’s glowing like the city lights. 

“Are you happy?” Keiko asks her.

“I think so,” Shihori answers. “But I think that you know, you have to take happiness as it comes. Store it up so that when things are bad, you can draw on that happiness to get you through.”

“Sunshine,” Keiko teases.

“Moonbeam,” Shihori laughs. 

Shihori reaches over for another spoonful of ice cream and that’s when Keiko grabs onto her wrist and holds her hand up. Keiko grins and Shihori has the decency to blush as Keiko admires the ring.

“Congratulations. When did he ask you?”

“Right before he opened the doors,” Shihori says bashfully. “On one knee and everything.”

Keiko gives her a hug and holds on for awhile. 

“Be happy,” Shihori tells her, “I want you to be happy.”

“I will. You know, I think I will be.”

 

 

 

Keiko buys herself a new toaster.

Her mother asks her about her job and they talk for hours. She sends her parents some of her articles and her mother tells her, “Your father has subscribed to the magazine. He passes it around his office,” and Keiko laughs. 

Keiko writes a story about a girl who can see ghosts, and how after every ghost she helps, she can see them as stars through the Tokyo night sky. She lets Shihori read it.

On her birthday, Shihori hands her a book.

Every page has illustrations and Keiko’s own words in print next to pictures of a girl in a blue dress and ghosts that are round and silly. 

“You know, you should print a few more of these,” Okada-san says when Keiko brings the book to work for Satoshi to take a look. The three of them are looking at Shihori’s illustrations.

“I’ll draw for your second book,” Ohno volunteers.

Keiko laughs and says she won’t publish it, “It’s a bit personal,” and they leave it at that.

 

 

 

She goes to Aomori. Keiko wakes up at dawn to see the Giant Buddha through the mist. She eats fresh scallops and at Mutsu Bay, a wild horse comes so close that she could nearly touch it. At the lakes, she forgets everything but colours for just one moment.

 

 

 

Okada-san asks her, “Where do you want to go?”

She wants to walk the Giant Wall. She wants to go diving in the Barrier Reef. 

Sometimes when she’s far away, like that time in Nagasaki, Keiko thinks of nothing but the world in front of her. She doesn’t look back. Sometimes, she thinks maybe she can forget him. 

There was a month, when she didn’t go to room 510. She was busy, helping Shihori and Jun pick out a venue. She had to go to art galleries with Satoshi to write about paintings that confused her. Her mother came by for a visit, and Keiko took her to visit Ninomiya-san. Nino followed her to lunch. Keiko had to pay. They talked about how his grandfather might be retiring, “So it’ll be all on me,” and for once, Nino looked thirty and terrified. 

Then Keiko might sometimes visit Sho for a whole weekend.

But Okada-san asks her where she wants to go. 

So Keiko asks him, “For how long?”

 

 

 

She goes to London.

The air is smoggy and Keiko ruins a pair of good heels on the cobblestones. She has to practice her English but she knows enough to get a guy to buy her a drink. She sits on the London Eye and she admires the clothes in Harrods. She buys herself some Yardley’s lavender.

On the weekend, she goes to Camdon and buys herself an old record track. She has to find a record player so Keiko goes to Portbello. She also ends up buying an antique camera that doesn’t work but looks nice on her bookshelf.

She goes to Yorkshire to admire the countryside, eats Yorkshire pudding and asks for the recipe. 

She’s there for a month, she goes to Scotland after and at the Loch, Keiko suddenly wishes Sho could see this.

 

 

 

Okada-san tells her that her travel articles have become a central piece of the magazine. Satoshi asks to tag along.

After Scotland, there is Hong Kong.

In Kowloon, Keiko finds egg tarts and she knows Shihori would eat them all. She takes her coffee sweeter and develops a fondness for condensed milk. 

Lan Kwai Fong gives Roppongi a run for it’s money and the music is louder and the liquor is cheaper. She gets a guy to buy her whiskey and thinks Sho would say that she’s still pretty and not sexy. She’s wearing a red dress that’s nearly indecent and heels with thin stilettos.

The taxis drive too fast. She gets lost on the subway. Keiko ends up buying cheap clothes from the stalls in Kowloon and haggling in broken Cantonese. When she eats wonton noodles, she adds a good dose of white pepper.

The metropolitan tempts her and Keiko buys herself a designer bag and struts around, foolish and proud of her own careless spending. 

Keiko emails her mother some photos. Satoshi asks her to buy him back from dried scallops.

She takes photos of Victoria Habour, and she suddenly feels her eyes hot and it’s because she’s thinking of Chiba.

 

 

 

Keiko takes herself to New York. She eats pizza with gooey cheese and she takes a walk through Central Park. 

Times Square is so alive that Keiko takes photos of every building and sign she can. She goes to a jazz club in Midtown and dances with a guy who’s tall, dark and handsome. 

In New York, Keiko finds a place where the noise is louder than Tokyo and everything is so fast she can’t catch her breath but she can’t stop. She needs to keep going.

Sometimes, she forgets him completely.

 

 

 

When she goes to Singapore, she eats chicken rice in a hawker centre with the humidity thick through the air. In Singapore, she takes trains that get more crowded than Tokyo’s and with ten times more shoving. She stays in a hotel with a pool on a roof, a pool that goes far to an edge that brings her the city before her eyes.

She buys herself clothes and eats satay in a pair of cut off denim shorts and a t-shirt. 

 

 

 

Keiko knows absolutely no French.

She struggles in Paris.

She buys herself a dozen macarons from Laduree and finishes them with no regrets. She reads novels at Café Louis Phillipe whilst drinking her lattes. She thinks of the books Sho would read and buys a secondhand atlas from an antique shop. 

The arching roof of Musée D’orsay leaves her in awe and the artwork is a mix of pastels and deep dark colours and splashes of vivid ones. She sees a Manet of three people on a picnic, smiles when she sees a naked woman bathing in the background.

Van Gogh pulls hers into a melancholy. She still doesn’t understand art but she thinks she might like looking at it.

On the River Seine, Keiko puts a lock on the bridge. She writes the date and no name and throws the key into the river. 

 

 

 

Sometimes, Keiko wishes that when she comes home, Sho will be at her train station. She imagines that he would be apologetic and he would be lost and just want to be with her. And then she thinks that she needs to get away, so she tells Okada-san that she will write about Seoul.

Keiko buys herself enough cosmetics that she ends up writing an additional article on Korean beauty products.

She goes to Jongmyo and walks across the courtyard and she feels peaceful, just for a moment. 

In Hongdae, she listens to indies bands and drinks enough chamisol that her cheeks flush. There’s a guy singing in a club and she claps and doesn’t understand a word. 

One night, she eats only fried chicken for dinner.

It’s only at N-Seoul Tower that she stands at the window and wishes she could kiss him once more.

 

 

 

She goes to Australia.

She ends up at tiny cafes in Melbourne. There’s a shopping centre with a giant tower in the middle, jutting out and towards a glass roof. Keiko sits on trams that glide carelessly from one end of the city to another.

In the daytime, she eats meat pies the size of her palm. On Brunswick, she buys a dress with paisleys and wears it with a large hat and platform sandals the next day. At the casino, she eats her steak rare. 

The river is stretched out and at night, she looks up and she sees stars dotting across the deep, deep star.

“I miss you,” and this is the only time she will say it.

 

 

 

She comes home to Tokyo. It’s chilly and she looks at the illuminations flooding the city for the holiday season. She uses a weekend to return to Kobe for a bit and her mother cooks her shougayaki and Keiko follows her dad around town for a day. They have shabu shabu on her last night there and Keiko curls up on the living room floor later like she’s five and says, “I missed you both,” and it feels right.

She writes two different articles for that trip. One for travel, and about everything she’s ever known about Kobe. The other is about homecoming. Okada-san tears up and Satoshi hands him some tissues. 

“He’s always had a thing for the fluff pieces,” Satoshi says.

Satoshi is tanned from fishing along the coastal line, he’s leaner from rushing around and his cubicle is just like Keiko’s. They both have photos of everything they’ve ever seen and done and Satoshi asks her, “Are you alright?” 

“I think I’m getting there.”

Jun and Shihori are still fretting about the wedding. Jun is pickier about the catering than Shihori is. Shihori almost losees her mind over the seating chart. 

When Shihori tries on her dress, she and Keiko bawl like babies because they’re really growing up, aren’t they. 

 

 

 

She goes to Cairo.

Some of the buildings have no roofs. Keiko wears long maxi dresses with cotton boleros. She goes to a mosque that’s over a thousand years old. She runs her hand over the stone and the sun shines brightly through a blue sky. 

She takes a bus to Giza and leans her head on the window as she looks on at endless browns and yellows. One evening, she rides on horseback with a group of people from all over the world. Their horses trot through the sand and the moon is full and glowing. They barbeque later and she shares stories with total strangers.

Keiko sees the pyramids, she gets a tan. At the markets, she buys silk scarves and perfumes.

 

 

 

She heads back to Kobe for the New Year. 

In her way back, she meets Satoshi in Kyoto and they walk through the Heian Shrine. It’s cold and the trees are bare.

When they draw their fortunes, they’re in the clear.

 

 

 

Keiko goes back to Chiba.

In Chiba, she goes to the ports and she eats fresh crab. She ends up interviewing locals and bringing home peanuts for everyone to snack on. 

She returns to Aiba-san’s store and his wife is there with a baby. Becky asks for her number, “So we can keep in touch,” and Keiko gives it to her, coos over the baby girl. 

Aiba-san asks how is she, “Are you going to light fireworks tonight?”

“Not tonight,” she says. And she thinks about the last time she lit fireworks. 

“Did you know that the universe works in cycles?” Aiba tells her. “That even the stars are reborn. So every two million years, things that happened before, they will happen again in one other cycle.” 

When she takes the train home that night, Keiko thinks of Tomo and how he waited one hundred years. She thinks of Jun and Shihori, who run after each other with endlessly energy. She thinks being in love is something complicated, that it probably becomes every nerve in your body.

 

 

 

Sakurai Sho comes back to her. If she were to take his hand, it would be warm. 

Sho wears a black coat over his suit. Maybe he went for a job interview. His hair is shorter. His eyes aren’t bright but they aren’t lost. 

Sho is alive and she should throw herself in his arms. Sho is alive. Sho is here, and she might yell at him. 

Keiko could ask him why.

Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t dead?

Did you lie to me about anything else?

What made you want to wake up? 

It’s not that Keiko doesn’t want to fall into his arms and be happy. She still has to scream at him, and he might or might not deserve it. Keiko doesn’t know who he is. She doesn’t know his birthday and she doesn’t know when he woke up. 

She can see things from here. They will have horrible arguments. His parents will probably hate her. Shihori will call him a workaholic. Is he a workaholic? Keiko will travel and forget to communicate. How is this meant to work?

“I missed you,” Sho says.

“You have a life to live,” Keiko says.

“I want you to live it with me.”

Keiko might tell him a story later. First, she’ll shout at him and tell him that he’s a horrible person. Then she’ll make him promise to never leave her again. But after, she’ll him a story about a boy who would was and how he met a girl and he opened up her world. 

And how, hopefully, they can live happily ever after.


End file.
